Forum Rules

[Andrew]

The NotebookReview.com forums have grown tremendously over the last few years and we thank all of you for being a part of this growing community.

In order to keep the forums running well and serve as a great place to get help with notebooks, please follow these simple rules for the forums here. If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to contact one of the Admins or Moderators.

General Rules:

• While debating and discussion is fine, we will not tolerate rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks or purposeless inflammatory posts. Our decision is final in these matters.
• Please refrain from posting meaningless threads, one word (or short) nonsense posts, or the such.
• Multiple or repeated posting in order to increase your post count is not allowed.
• Cross posting, the act of posting the same thing across multiple forums, is not allowed. Please just post once in the most appropriate forum.
• Advertising, spamming and trolling is not allowed. This includes using the forum email and Private message system to spam other members.
• We do not allow discussion of anything related to medical help
• Please wait a reasonable amount of time before bumping posts, at least 24 hours.
• We also do not allow posts that are sexual or violent in nature or violate NotebookReview.com community standards.
• Additionally adult/sexual topics and those concerning sexual orientation as used in a derogatory, inflammatory, or insensitive manner are not allowed.
• The NotebookReview.com moderation team shall be the sole arbitrator of what does and what does not violate community standards.
• Discussion of illegal activities such as fraud, software and music piracy and other intellectual property violations are not allowed. There is a zero tolerance policy for illegal activity being discussed.
• Do not post content from private correspondence, such as email or chat, within the forums. Posting any other persons private information such as email, phone number or address could result in banning.
• Discussion of cracking passwords or bypassing security measures is prohibited.
• Each member is allowed one login account. Registering with multiple accounts is not allowed.
• We reserve the right to remove offensive posts without notice.
• If you are going to post non-English on these forums, please also post an English Translation of your post.
• You cannot post any affiliate or referral links, or post anything asking for a referral.
• You cannot post advertisements or notices for contests.
• Foul language isn't necessary to discuss notebooks and help people, so it won't be tolerated. Any attempt to bypass the profanity filters will result in an infraction against the user and that post being edited or removed. Using asterisks or any other symbol to disguise bad language is considered bypassing the filter.
• Hidden links in posts or signatures are assumed to be malicious and members posting such content will be permanently banned, no exceptions.
• Please, no rep begging.
• Do not post EPP codes or anything similar not for public use.
• If you are going to post material that is not your own, properly credit the source(s); failure to do so is considered plagiarism.
• Please do not post huge images. Anything over 500x500 should be thumbnailed or linked only. See our guide for where to host images here and how to resize images here.
• Image replies are not allowed (posting just an image in response to a question)
  

Any threads/posts of these above types will be deleted.

Also while these rules cover most common situations, they cannot anticipate everything. Consequently we reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure these forums are not disrupted or abused in any way.

We reserve the right to ban or infract anyone who willfully violates the forum rules. Bans will not necessarily be permanent, but enacted based on the seriousness of an offense to these rules.

Advertising Services

We do not allow people to post threads or to send private messages or emails to users here that advertise or solicit any products or services. Explicit advertising and solicitating in sigs is also prohibited.
You are not allowed in posts to link to or advertise in any way (including but not limited to) personal blogs/websites/pages/affiliated websites/affiliated resources in posts, no exceptions. Links of that type are restricted to the signature area only; see below for additional information.

Links in Sigs

Links in signatures must follow these guidelines:

• Promotional text for a commercial product or service is ok, provided there are no price(s) of product(s) or service(s) listed.
• No donation links or similar are allowed (this applies to the entire forum, posts included)
• A link and promotional text for a site that is not commercial and does not contain product(s) and/or service(s) is allowed, provided the site is not sexual or does not violate NotebookReview.com community standards. The NotebookReview.com team shall be the sole arbitrator of what does and what does not violate community standards. (Examples include sites about drugs and/or inappropriate material.)
• Duplicate links to the same domain in a sig are not allowed, the exception to this is you may have mutliple links to pages/threads here on NotebookReview.com or another TechnologyGuide.com sister site.
• Resellers may not post links to external sites in their sig files, unless it is part of a sponsorship. To investigate sponsorship opportunities please contact the TechnologyGuide Sales Group.
• Links to reseller sites or promoting them in a signature is not allowed, if it is discovered a member has been paid to embed links in their signatures to another website it is grounds for banning.
• No embedded players are allowed in signatures

Avatars

Animated avatars are not allowed. Sorry. You are able to use a customized static image avatar though.
Make sure that your avatar is rated "PG" and appropriate for all age groups.

Signature Size Limits

All signatures should not exceed the following size limits:

• For text signatures: 4 lines normal size, 8 lines small size (when viewed in the vBulletin Default style) and up to 90 chars per line. Font sizes above 2 are not allowed. (Blank lines count as lines.)
• Do not use images with large text to bypass the previous item
• For images in signatures: 1 image up to 350 pixels wide, 125 pixels tall and 25k in size, or 4 "userbars" (350 x 20) stacked together.
• Animated images in sigs are not allowed (incl. userbars)
• IP trackers are not allowed

Reseller Rules
There are some Reseller specific rules. Resellers are:

• Anyone who works in a sales, PR or support role for a company whose primary trade is in computers or computer-related products is classified as a reseller.
• Not allowed to make unsolicited recommendations or post in the "What Notebook Should I Buy" section of the forum.
• Not allowed to comment on the quality / reliability of other companies or products
• May provide clarifications in the forum in response to questions asked by members.
• Are highly encouraged to help in trouble-shooting of problems
• Are forbidden from posting any links back to their respective websites for any reason, including in their signatures unless it is part of a sponsorship. To investigate sponsorship opportunities please contact the TechnologyGuide Sales Group.
• The posting of product images within the forum are not allowed, including both attachments and hosted images
• Product announcements are not allowed

We also have some rules that apply for certain forums:

Off Topic forum

The Off Topic forum is where NotebookReview.com members can gather to chat about almost anything, technical or non-technical in nature. If you have a question that doesn't fit into any other forum, or just want to chat, this is the place. That being said, please do not post about inappropriate, senseless or highly controversial topics. Illegal activities are not to be discussed or promoted, and topics such as alcohol are not allowed since many members are not 21.

This forum is rated PG - lets keep it that way.

Political Discussions, Signatures & Avatars

Discussions, signatures and avatars supporting candidates, political action/interest group, or controversial topics are not allowed. Political and religious discussion should not take place on this forum.